If you watch the new horror movie “Psycho Killer” (not recommended), you’ll recognize a familiar sensation. It’s not boredom, although don’t get me wrong, there’s plenty of that. No, it’s the sneaking suspicion that you’re watching a project that fell out of time. In this case it comes from the mid-2000s, when a grungy, vicious serial killer film could get away with a half-baked plot and one-note characters if — and this is a big “if” — it also had a lot of style.
Sadly, “Psycho Killer” wasn’t made with style in mind. Actually, it doesn’t seem to have anything on its mind. It’s a rudimentary cat-and-mouse thriller with laughable ideas about Satanism and an absurd, cringy ending. The film was written by Andrew Kevin Walker, who penned the late ‘90s grunge thriller classic “Se7en,” but it plays more like the hacky, studio-mandated, unused ending of “Se7en,” which abandoned Walker’s shocking “what’s in the box” mindblower in favor of a generic shootout in a church. (Thank god they didn’t film that one.)
“Psycho Killer” stars Georgina Campbell (“Cold Storage”) as Jane Archer, a highway patrol officer who loses her husband, also a cop, after he pulls a serial killer over in a routine traffic stop. In the killer’s meager defense there was no probable cause and the cop was being an a-hole. But anyway, Jane becomes obsessed with finding the so-called “Satanic Slasher” (I guess all the good serial killer names were taken), so she hunts him across America’s highways, deciphering the secret codes he leaves behind in bloody graffiti, on her mission to stop his roaring rampage.
To paraphrase Oscar Wilde: To lose a husband may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose your whole personality is carelessness. Maybe you can chalk it up to the grieving process but Archer has no recognizable human quirks, nor any qualities that distinguish her as an individual. She’s a note card with the word “PROTAGONIST” on it, followed by the letters “TBD.” Campbell heroically plays Archer like there’s something to actually play. It’s tragic when a movie gives a talented performer nothing, and it’s admirable that Campbell tries, at least, to make “nothingade.”
James Preston Rogers plays the Satanic Slasher as a towering hulk with long, unwashed hair and a deep, sonorous voice. Maybe he got lost on his way to audition for Heathcliff in the new “Wuthering Heights.” We never get a good look at his face so Rogers’ performance is largely vibes, with an emphasis on the “large” part. The sound design makes the Satanic Slasher’s footfalls resonate like an elephant wearing galoshes trudging around old floorboards, no matter what surface he’s actually stepping on. (Cool mask, though.)
There’s a side quest in “Psycho Killer” where the Satanic Slasher is surrounded by other Satanists, and it’s the only interesting sequence in the film, because for a moment it feels like we might be getting somewhere. Our villain is a true believer and everyone else is just in it for the blood orgies. You might even dare to imagine this film has something to critique about the divide in organized religion, or the dangers of extremism. But in the end what it really has to say is that the second act needed padding.
“Psycho Killer” is the directorial debut of Gavin Polone. He executive produced “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and backed a host of memorable genre films, including “8mm” (also scripted by Walker), “Stir of Echoes” and “Zombieland.” Unfortunately, he just doesn’t have enough zazz to bulk up this material. “Psycho Killer” could have compensated for its simplicity, and even its silliness, if the storytelling was more exciting than the story. Instead the whole enterprise is weirdly inert. Even the opening credit sequence, with its montage of pagan symbol clip art, looks like a free screensaver.
But the greatest crime committed by “Psycho Killer,” besides the embarrassing finale, is that it tries to take a Talking Heads song down with it. The 1977 single “Psycho Killer” is a serial killer ballad, and co-writer David Byrne once said he imagined it as a fusion of Alice Cooper and Randy Newman. Now that’s style, and it deserves a better film than this. Besides, there’s another Talking Heads song which makes a lot more sense as the title of an aimless and foreboding car trip: “Road to Nowhere.”
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